A District business owner received insider information on contracts and racked up more than $300,000 for services he never provided in a scheme with a former employee in the D.C. Office of the State Superintendent of Education. Strader, 38, paid cash to a then-employee in the OSSE’s Division of Special Education who created false purchase orders that enabled Strader’s companies to be paid, court files show. The education office “cooperated fully” in the investigation but declined to comment Tuesday on the case beyond a statement that said the employee referenced in the Strader case no longer works for the office. In addition to the bogus purchase orders, the employee gave Strader confidential information on OSSE contracts, court files show. On his invoices, court files show, Strader used the names of people who had neither given him permission to use their identities nor done the work that Strader claimed.

Source: Washington Post July 18, 2017 22:52 UTC